Books: New Light on the Old Master Henry James: Literary Criticism

Edited by Leon Edel and Mark Wilson Library of America; 2,892 pages; two volumes; $27.50 each

These volumes assemble, for the first time, all of the literary essays, criticism and reviews of Henry James (1843-1916). Their publication is surprising for two reasons. Given the scholarly industry that has been applied to James' work over the past several decades, it is astonishing to learn that nearly a thousand of these pages, roughly one-third of the total, have never before been issued in book form. What is more, the appearance now of this unfamiliar material reveals the Old Master in a new light: a great American novelist who wrote more superb criticism than any compatriot, before or since.

James'...

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